Preaching of the Gospel, Maidstone

Now in the second period of three hours, from the third hour to the sixth hour, Jesus hung there crucified upon the cross. What did He endure in those three hours? No doubt He endured immense physical suffering. The gospel writers do not speak of that, but it must have been the case. What these three hours do bring out was that He also experienced the hatred and malice of men. The passers-by reviled Him. In this gospel, the writer records that even the malefactors on either side of Jesus reproached Him. There was no one there to comfort, no one to support Him. He looked for comforters and He found none (Ps.69:20). Think of what it must have meant to the Lord Jesus, a real Man, that there was no one to comfort Him. All were opposed to Him; “he was reckoned with the lawless”. That was the place in which the Lord of glory was publicly on the cross before men. What a spectacle it was. In these three hours the sun was shining; persons passed by and they would have seen Him. It was a public thing for all to see when the Lord Jesus “was reckoned with the lawless”. What shame attached to the cross. The Lord of glory, the holy One, about whom it could be stated unequivocally “in him sin is not” (1 John 3:5), and “who did no sin”, (1 Pet.2:22), He “endured the cross, having despised the shame”, Heb.12:2. These statements of Scripture set out for us the absolute and holy perfection of the Man who was there, the Lord Jesus. How much He endured during these first three hours upon the cross! What they must have meant to Him.

But then there were His final three hours on the cross, from the sixth to the ninth hour, when the whole land was clothed in darkness. Why was that? Because in those three hours before He delivered up His spirit to His Father, the Lord Jesus became the Sin-bearer. He faced God as to the matter of sin and sins. “Him who knew not sin”, the scripture says, God “has made sin for us”, 2 Cor.5:21. Can you say, ‘for me’, dear friend – that He was

made sin for you? He was for me. What does that mean? It means that the Lord Jesus, the One who was without sin, was made the very thing, sin, that lies at the root of my sinful, fallen nature, and yours too, dear friend, and bore and exhausted God’s holy wrath in relation to it. Think of that. The hymn writer puts it:

‘The judgment of sin was His burden’       (Hymn 53).

Sin, that evil root of all that is against God, was judged there by God Himself. It has been dealt with in totality and will never need addressing again. No one could see what transpired in those three hours between God and that blessed Man, the Lord Jesus. He was the only Man who could face God in relation to sin. He could do so because He was entirely free of it, free of any taint of it. It has often been said if God was to pour out His judgment upon you and me in relation to what we are, we would be consumed in a moment – such is the wrath of God, such is the awfulness of sin in His sight. But there was One Man there who in those three hours was able to sustain the judgment, not for one hour or two but three hours, and during that time He bore and exhausted the awful wrath of God against sin itself.

Now the Lord Jesus not only resolved the whole matter of sin before God but He bore in His body the sins of all those who believe on Him, and faced and exhausted God’s judgment in relation to them, as Peter wrote, “who himself bore our sins in his body on the tree”, 1 Pet.2:24. I trust that you are amongst those who can say that. The work of the Lord Jesus is available and sufficient to clear before God the sins of all who have faith in the Saviour, the One now in glory, and faith in His precious shed blood, for the scripture says that He gave Himself “a ransom for all”, 1 Tim.2:6. The work of Jesus is entirely sufficient to meet the whole question of your sinful state and history, and He Himself, as now risen and glorified “is the propitiation for our sins; but not for ours alone, but also for the whole world”, 1 John 2:2. How clear the Scriptures are. If you have not put your faith in Him and in His precious blood that was shed at Calvary, I would urge you to do so now. That work of Jesus is sufficient to meet every sin that might trouble you. You may not even remember some of your sins, but if you have not accepted Christ, then every sin of yours stands against you before a holy God. But for God, the work of Jesus, including the shedding of His precious blood, is sufficient to atone for all your sins and to cleanse you from any trace of them. If you put your faith in the Saviour, the Lord Jesus, God includes you in “their sins and their lawlessnesses I will never remember any more” Heb.8:12. What a wonderful work!

How immense was what Jesus endured in those three hours. He bore the judgment of God against sin and exhausted it, and in His body He bore the sins of all who believe on Him. In bearing the judgment, He cried out, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”. The Lord Jesus, a blessed Man, was forsaken by God. As the Sin-bearer, He had to be forsaken by God. For the judgment to be borne and exhausted, God turned away from that One who had ever pleased Him and executed His full judgment upon Him. That was the only way in which the whole matter of sin and sins could be resolved righteously before a Holy God. There was only one Man who was able to do it, and in order that it might be so, God had to forsake Him. What it must have meant to God to forsake this blessed One. Jesus experienced the awfulness of that forsaking in order that God’s great thoughts might be secured. Those great thoughts involve your blessing and mine and the securing of us for God’s pleasure and service. How wonderful that is. The Lord Jesus went through all of this and He went through it alone, as the hymn writer says:

‘None could follow there, blest Saviour,

When thou didst for sins atone’      (Hymn 298).

Sins were borne, and the whole principle of sin itself was judged there in those three hours. Having completed that, the Lord Jesus died and His precious blood was shed so that believers on Him might be cleansed of all unrighteousness and redeemed to God for His pleasure and service. He delivered up His spirit to His Father, the communion that was interrupted during those awful three hours having been restored. No one took His life from Him. Men might have thought that Jesus died because of what they did to Him, but no one took His life from Him; He laid it down of Himself. In His death, that sinful order of man, commencing with Adam, was vicariously ended by Jesus for ever in the sight of God.

Now, thank God, Jesus has taken His life anew. I did not read of that, but it is a wonderful matter. The Lord Jesus was in the grave three days and three nights. He lay in the stillness of death, and after three days He rose, the living One; He took His life anew. A glorious Man, He is now enthroned in glory above, the great accomplisher of all that is for God’s pleasure, the One in whom all God’s thoughts are centred, and available to sinners as the Saviour.

That was what was in my heart to speak of, dear friends. I trust there may be profit for us all in the consideration of these periods of time related to the closing hours in the life of our Lord Jesus in flesh and blood conditions here. What a wonderful Saviour He is! May He be magnified in our hearts, for His name’s sake.

17 October 2021

Mark Webster